The Lady of the Lake

In Guttridge’s sprightly seventh Brighton mystery (after 2019’s Swimming with the Dead), Det. Insp. Sarah Gilchrist and Det. Sgt. Bellamy Heap are dispatched to a lake belonging to Hollywood film star Nimue Grace, where Maj. Richard Rabbitt, a neighbor of Grace, has been found with his throat slit. The possible murderers include locals Donald Kermode, who discovered the body while swimming nude in the lake and has a creepy obsession with Grace, and Said Farzi, who’s suspected of human trafficking. The stakes rise with the appearance of more bodies. Guttridge adds humor at appropriate spots, including in the byplay between the leads, as well as in the person of an eccentric ostrich farmer, who schemes to resurrect dinosaurs using DNA from his flightless birds. Catherine Aird fans who’ve not yet discovered this series will be delighted. Agent: Paul Moreton, Bell Lomax Moreton Agency (U.K.). (Mar.)